HOW TO SELL DIGITAL DESIGNS ON ETSY

Having a decent passive income stream or home-based side business is really important.  It can be stressful starting out—you aren't sure if your SVG files are correct, you don't know if your Etsy thumbnails are any good and will anyone actually find your digital products in the sea of competition on Etsy?  I did a video here on getting started selling digital products on Etsy: 

Here's a deep dive walkthrough where I cover how to make the digital files (SVG, EPS, DXF and PNG files) using free software. I also cover how to bundle them up and list them on Etsy. 

This video is long but it covers everything to get started. Here are some key points to get you going: 

Niche marketing: do some research on Etsy first to see what is selling. You can click on the Etsy store (not an individual listing but the whole store) and see how many sales they have made). It can get a little depressing if you are starting out and you are competing with a store that has 10,000 or more sales. I would recommend making bundles of SVG files and making them high quality and unique. Unique is the key. Crafters don't want more Disney princess files. There are already 5 billion of them on Etsy. But what about a very specific type of niche that kids are into these days? Maybe it's astronauts, or rap music or funny slogans. 

Who is your audience: typically the average consumer of digital files on Etsy are crafters. An example is someone who uses a Cricut machine (a machine that makes crafts out of paper and other materials) but they don't know how to make the SVG file themselves. They are not computer savvy. This represents an opportunity for you. If you make a clean-looking bundle of 20 SVG / PNG / DXF / EPS files, with a decent thumbnail, you will make sales. 

Getting that first sale: making your first 10 sales is the most difficult part. No one wants to spend $3.00 on a shop that has zero sales. So one strategy is to sell a couple of designs to a family member and have them purchase it through your Etsy shop. Even having 2 sales is infinitely better than having zero sales. You want some legitimacy on your shop and that means having some sales to start. 

Custom Requests: having a little blurb on your Etsy shop that says "WE DO CUSTOM REQUESTS!" can really help your shop. One of the best ways to get sales is to do a "one off" design for a client. I do this a lot. The majority of my digital crafting is by request and typically people will request a specific name, slogan, phrase or age. So instead of "Happy Birthday" on a t-shirt, they want a shirt design that says "Happy 60th Birthday Jerry, you old buzzard". Yes you will only sell one design, but you make a sale and (hopefully) get a positive review, and that is what you need more than anything when you are first starting out. 

Check out the video for lots more tips and tricks including a walkthrough of how to create a basic SVG file in Inkscape, which is a free vector software tool.